Courts Should Require Extra Proof From Debt Buyers

In order to administer any kind of justice, our court system requires two parties participating in a lawsuit. When that doesn’t happen, plaintiffs generally prevail, even if they haven’t produced any proof of their claims. Ordinarily, a default is a bad thing for a plaintiff, because there is little or no chance of getting paid.

Defaults are just what debt buyers want, though, because they have thousands of lawsuits to file and little or no proof in any of them. And debt buyers are willing and able to pursue collections on a massive scale—garnishing salaries and bank accounts to satisfy all those default judgments. Essentially, the debt buyer industry has found a loophole in the court system—a way to exploit the default rules.

That’s why courts need to raise the bar for debt buyers. When the usual result of a debt buyer lawsuit is a deprivation of property, courts should endeavor to make sure it doesn’t happen unless the debt buyer has shown some right to that property.

Sam Glover is a lawyer and the founder and Editor in Chief of Lawyerist.com. He also works with lawyers on motion practice and appeals, and is President of the board of directors of HOME Line, a nonprofit Minnesota tenant advocacy organization.